Korean Cloning Scientist Quits Over Report He Faked Research

SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 23 - Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, the South Korean scientist whose research on stem cells and cloning propelled him to international stardom, resigned from his university on Friday, after an investigative panel there reported earlier in the day that he had fabricated the paper in which he claimed to have created stem cell colonies from 11 patients.

The South Korean government, which had vigorously promoted Dr. Hwang as the symbol of its drive to carve out a niche in biotechnology, admitted to "crushing misery" and said it planned to halt research funds for the 53-year-old scientist.

In both Korea and the United States, supporters of stem cell research expressed concern that the setback would damage the image of what was already a controversial field. Many critics have long worried that the high-profile tactics of famous scientists like Dr. Hwang fundamentally distort the scientific method. [News analysis, Page A6.]

The panel at Seoul National University pledged to impose a heavy punishment on Dr. Hwang, and said it was investigating his other claims, including his report of having cloned a dog and his announcement last year that he had achieved the first cloning of a human cell.

But he insisted that he had invented the technology needed to clone human embryos and to produce stem cells that genetically match patients.

"Technology for patient-specific embryonic stem cells belongs to South Korea," he said before leaving his lab. "And you will find out that this is true."

The nationally televised announcement by the university, which examined data from his lab and questioned members of his research team, was the first official confirmation of a series of criticisms of his work in the last month, many of them posted on Web sites used by young Korean researchers.

Dr. Hwang had already retracted the stem cell paper, which appeared in May in the American journal Science, after critics and associates pointed out that photographs used to support it appeared to have been faked. He cited "human errors."

But on Friday, Roe Jung Hye, dean of research affairs at the university, said at the panel's news conference that the erroneous data "were not accidental mistakes, but were an intentional fabrication."

Dr. Roe said that Dr. Hwang had created only 2 stem cell lines by March 15, when he submitted his paper to Science, but concocted DNA fingerprinting and other lab data to make it look as if he had produced 11 lines that genetically matched patients.

"We determined that this is a grave misconduct that damages the foundation of science," she said.

The panel has not yet determined whether the two existing embryonic cell lines were derived from a patient, as Dr. Hwang reported, or were simply generated in the usual way from fertilized human eggs.

Dr. Roe also reported as false a principal claim by Dr. Hwang in the Science paper, that he had made human cloning far more practical by using fewer eggs to establish each cell line. He had reduced the average requirement from the 242 eggs he needed to establish the first cloned human cell line in 2004, to a mere 17 per cell line, he wrote.

"We believe that the number of eggs he used was far more than he has reported," Dr. Roe said.

Another Korean scientist, Roh Sung Il, a former associate of Dr. Hwang's, has said as many as 1,100 eggs might have been used in research for the paper.

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The breakthrough Dr. Hwang said he had achieved would have been a significant advance in therapeutic cloning, in which a wide range of degenerative diseases could be treated with tissues generated from a patient's own cells. On Friday, that potential was cited -- wistfully, angrily or with renewed determination -- by scientists and others in South Korea and in the United States.

The Rev. Kim Je Eun, a Methodist pastor whose 10-year-old son uses a wheelchair after a car accident and was one of the 11 patients cited in the Science paper, said he vividly remembered the day in April 2004 when the boy first met Dr. Hwang.

Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell expert at Johns Hopkins University, said Dr. Hwang's falsifications "will produce cynicism about the stem cell field and science in general." He added that scientists would need to convince the public and policy makers that people commit fraud in science, just as in any profession, and that as scientists "we must make it apparent that we do our best to prevent the corruption of the scientific process."

A critic of stem cell research, Richard Doerflinger, the deputy director of pro-life activities for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the field had been seriously damaged.

"It's all very well to say one scandal shouldn't set back the field," he said. "But Hwang's team was the field. If his results are false, then after seven years of attempts worldwide no one has succeeded in getting even the first step in 'therapeutic cloning' to work on a practical scale."

Scientists, however, argued that the damage was narrower. "There may be some political flareback," said Dr. Donald Kennedy, editor of Science. "But I hope people would consider the many exciting experiments that have worked, rather than focusing on one very embarrassing failure."

Dr. Zach Hall, president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, said that it was too soon to say whether Dr. Hwang's failure would prove a political setback for stem cell research, but that it was evidently a scientific reverse.

"It's a technological setback," he said, "and ground we thought we had won must now be re-won."

A group of young scientists who helped reveal flaws in Hwang's papers through a Web site frequented by science students issued a statement saying that any leniency toward Hwang would further damage the credibility of South Korean scientists.

Dr. Hwang's rise from peasant's son to international fame has often been attributed to South Koreans' eagerness to embrace new technology and their fiercely nationalistic desire to become No. 1 in the world, as exemplified by the South Korean computer chip and shipbuilding industries.

But Han Jae Kak, a policy coordinator for the opposition Democratic Labor Party, said South Korea's "overriding emphasis on quick achievements" and its "need for a hero who can put the country together at a time of economic uncertainty helped make Dr. Hwang what he is today."

Mr. Han said, "The government depended on Hwang to justify its policy of support for cloning." Since 1998, the government has provided Dr. Hwang's team with an estimated $65 million in research funds.

"Popular support was total; people had not listened to suspicions about Hwang," said Mr. Han, who was among the first to question the work. "In a way, we were all chasing an optical illusion."

Choe Sang-Hun of The International Herald Tribune reported from Seoul for this article, and Nicholas Wade from New York.